From Ra-leigh to Del-hi with no Del-ay

So now that we've gotten some of the background info out of the way, its time to weave a riveting narrative of high-jinks and low-blows as adventures pop up like mushrooms after a rain (haha rain...) and I get more experienced than the Jimmy Hendrix's band.

or rather, life was like that for James Bond and Marco Polo perhaps, but today we have something called the 9-5 and its become frightfully universal, though not universal enough it would seem, because here at GDL we have the innovative model called the 8-8, that is, breakfast at 8, lunch at noon, and dinner at 8 pm, all time in between is spent task-bound and nose to the grindstone, except for occasional breaks to enjoy some Chai, or mango juice, or write a blog post, or get some water, or play the "if i was in america i would be eating ____ food right now game". So its not too bad really, particularly when one is indoors where shade and fans ameliorate the harshest task-master of all, Mr. Sun.

The events leading up to this routine are pretty typical as well, at least for a certain jet-setting class, but for those of us not bread on international flights, and the generally delicious meals that they entail, it was certainly a treat, in particular getting to catch up on movies i'd missed in the controlled chaos of school work at Penn, i savored the opportunity to knock down the Fantastic Mr. Fox (ok, but a bit underwhelming), Marley & Me (tragic and tear-jerking, in all the right ways, it hit pretty close to home), Shutter Island (stressful and at times exhilarating, but mostly startling and a bit upsetting), and The Princess and the Frog (everything you expect from a classic Disney piece, good songs, great characters, and a wholesome and inspiring message).
Now that the important things are out of the way, i might mention Delhi a bit, after arriving late at night I was driven to the hotel UPIASI was putting us up in and met up with Sarah and Meg who were chilling before bed, we made plans to explore some of Delhi as well as purchase the requisite clothing tomorrow before heading out to Bagar by eveningtide. After making our way to a House of Textiles and purchasing several fabulous outfits, we autorickshawed into Old Delhi, looking to get a feel for the sounds and smells of this famous city, and oh did we ever. Old Delhi was a Hot Mess, in caps, emphasis on the hot, and after being turned down from entering the Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in India), and unable to sit on the searing steps without cooking our buns prematurely, we wandered down the bustling main street in search of some food. Finally arriving at a place we could sit down indoors, I indulged in some Pani Puri Chaat (waaay too spicey) and a Mango Lassi (refreshing) after which we wandered a bit through the heat, dodging bikers, cows, donkeys, rickshaws and cars and looking for a Jain temple that included a bird sanctuary, unsuccessful and unabel to enter the Red Fort (closed mondays) we tried to convince an autorickshaw driver to take us back to the India Habitit Centre, which he, speaking no English, did not do, but brought us somewhere in New Delhi where we found someone else to finish up the job. India was going to be a tough cookie it seemed, but daunted I was not, all that was needed was to learn Hindi, learn to tolerate spicy food, learn to tolerate extreme heat, not get sick from the water or food, and not die in the street and everything would be fine, might even be an adventure :)

A little Background for Digestin'

Namaste!

As I may have communicated in the previous update post, I am doing an internship this summer in the small town of Bagar in a rural area of Rajasthan, India. Going into this internship, I am my compadres had little to no knowledge what exactly we would be doing, what the place we were staying at would be like, or even where Bagar was exactly. As we could come to find out during our journey from Delhi to Bagar, we were not alone in this confusion. But before we get to that little odyssey, lets get some background info out of the way.

Myself, Sarah and Meg were selected to receive funds from the Center for the Advanced Study of India at Penn to travel to rural Rajasthan to do an internship with a local NGO called the Grassroots Development Laboratory (GDL), From what I now understand, GDL was set up about 3 years ago through the generosity of the Piramal Foundation, the charitable wing of a major Indian Company run by the Piramal family, a very well to do family that have their humble origins in the small town of Bagar. After making it big in pharmaceuticals and branching out into a number of different industries (real estate in Mumbai?) The Piramals set of the Piramal Foundation to give something back, building a number of schools and hospitals in Bagar and starting GDL to test innovative solutions to many of the issues that rural Indians are faced with, most operating under a Social Enterprise model that seeks to create original businesses run by local talent that address needs in the community and empower the individuals that run them. For a detailed account of this concept you can check out Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. http://www.piramal.org.in/gdl

GDL's mission is to create social enterprises and test them with the local population in Bagar, and if they prove to be sustainable and successful, look to scale them and expand their models to other parts of India. They have already successfully done with with Sarvagel, a company that provides clean drinking water at a fraction of the cost of bottled water that is the same quality. This enterprise exists now as an independent entity that provides many homes and businesses in Bagar with clean and safe water, and it has expanded to several other states as well.
The projects that GDL currently operates include the Bagar Employment Institute, a training center that teaches classes on English, Computer Skills, Leadership, and other useful trades that can help local people become more employable. The other two main projects are called Source for Change and Mobile Naukri, and I will give a little more detail on them as I will be working with both of them this summer.

Source for Change can be succinctly described as a Women's Empowerment Rural BPO, which means that it is a Business Process Outsourcing center that seeks to employ local women in a rural area to work on projects like translation and data entry outsourced from companies in the Urban centers. The focus on women is an attempt to address the gender gap that exists throughout India, and particularly in Rajasthan, where female infanticide and inhibited access to food and healthcare has resulted in the ratio of men to women being skewed decidedly towards the males. SFC gives women an opportunity to become economically valuable, as well as allowing them to earn an independent income for themselves and to prove that women are capable of doing jobs that have generally been reserved for men. http://www.sourceforchange.in/
The results have been highly encouraging in that many of the women have shown a great aptitude for the work as well as demonstrated changes in their personalities and positions at home where they now have a greater voice due to their earning of an income. SFC has so successfully completed a number of projects for large companies as well as overcome the initial resistance from the community that it is looking to expand into other towns and other areas of India that can benefit from its model.

Mobile Naukri is the newest project at GDL and has just begun to take off in its pilot phase. The concept is that there are many educated people in rural places liek Bagar where there are many colleges and training institutes but no transparency about jobs in the area or advertising by companies in the private sector in rural areas. As a result almost everyone seeks to apply for limited government jobs that may not even fit their specific skills and qualifications. Mobile Naukri looks to connect rural job seekers with companies by using cell phones and SMS, something nearly every person in India possesses. Job seekers make a call to the data collection office (run through SFC) where they are entered into a database with their qualifications, desired job type, and other information. When a job becomes available from a company, a SMS text is sent to all those in the database who match the qualifications for that specific job, and they have the option of coming to interview for that job or passing on it if they aren't interested at that time. The main thrust of the project at this point is building a large database of job seekers through marketing and outreach in the community, and contacting a number of companies to get them to post jobs when they become available. So far the model has been successful and already placed a number of individuals with jobs that meet their specific needs and qualifications and the project is looking at expansion through the surrounding towns and villages.

an updater interlude..

Hey,

So before i launch into the next real post I guess i owe a bit of explanation, i'm not sure why, but i feel like writing as if there were some broad audience that is reading it, when really there are only like 8 people all who know me, so its not like you don't know what i've been doing since the last post i wrote, but humor me if you will.

I believe i left off halfway through a trip to Syria, i got through the first 2 days and then just didn't get around to writing anything until now. Sufficed to say i am no longer in Syria. After that trip I went back to finish up the semester in Amman, with a weeklong trip to Egypt included, then said goodbye to my host family and took all my luggage (along with Sam, Peter and Clarence) to Israel/Palestine, where we stayed in East Jerusalem and visited Bethlehem, after which Clarence and I flew out of Tel Aviv, he to Paris, and I back home to good ole NC just in time for Christmas cheer. After this i went back to Penn for the spring and secured an internship in India from the Center for the Advanced Study of India at Penn who provided me with $3,000 buckaroos to intern with a local NGO called the Grassroots Development Laboratory in a small town called Bagar in Rajasthan in the northern part of the country, where i arrived yesterday after flying into Delhi the day before.

so that should get "us" up to speed i guess.